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I felt as if I had been stabbed through my entire body and with this came a wave of psychological horror at the realization that things can go inside my body. Of course I already knew this fact intellectually; embodied knowledge is an entirely different matter. What my body told me was that this intrusion of the outside world into my internal physical being was wrong on a level too deep for words.

Maia feels a profound sense of bodily violation after enduring a painful first Pap smear exam. The physical pain and psychological horror of this experience are palpable and mutually reinforce each other as Maia learns the embodied knowledge that comes with being treated according to socially assigned gender protocols. Since Maia does not identify with the gender assigned to eir body, this moment of penetration by a doctor’s instruments strikes em as an almost indescribable intrusion, one that goes beyond the usual discomfort a person might experience during such an exam. Moments like these confirm for Maia that e isn’t a girl either in mind or in body.

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